


Black Tie

by cycnus39



Category: Batman (Comics), Iron Man (Comic), Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cycnus39/pseuds/cycnus39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce should have left the party an hour ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Tie

He didn’t realise how tired he was, didn’t realise how comfortable Roni’s study sofa was, until he started to drift off and his champagne glass almost slipped from his fingers.

Damn alcohol.

There was only a mouthful of champagne left in the glass but he’d had enough, reached down the side of the couch and placed it on the floor before checking his watch.

Forty-two minutes until he could leave.

Growling a sigh, he settled back into the couch and tried to think of something that would stop him falling asleep.

He failed.

Three minutes later, he was startled awake by a blast of party noise when Tony slipped into the study and grinned at him amusedly.

“Rough day?”

“Rough month,” he returned with a stifled yawn. “What are you doing so far from your admiring crowd?”

“Oh, I thought I’d let you admire me for a bit,” Tony answered airily while sitting down on the couch beside him.

“That’s big of you,” he commented dryly as Tony turned to lie down and rest his head on his lap.

“I thought so.” Tony gave him a winning grin before frowning up at him melodramatically. “Have you been getting your vitamins?”

“If I look unwell, why am I not the one lying down?”

Tony shrugged against his thigh. “You have weird idiosyncrasies.”

“Says the man who doesn’t wear underwear unless he’s leaving the house.”

“Underwear is overrated.”

“So are parties.”

Cocking his head to the side, Tony smirked up at him. “Are you pouting?”

“No.”

“Because from this angle it looks like you’re pouting.”

“And from this angle you’d look better in a heap on the floor.”

“But looks can be deceiving.”

“I thought you’d see it that way.”

“Speaking of seeing, Roni said your not-boyfriend was here but I didn’t see him blocking out the light anywhere.”

“Clark’s only an inch taller than me, Tony.”

“An inch taller but a foot broader. Seriously, Bruce, did he deadlift the whole of Kansas to get built like that or just bench press a few towns?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” he returned flatly, closing his eyes and letting his head rest on the back of the couch.

Silence except for the steady tick of the carriage clock on the desk and the low rumble of party noise from the other end of the house.

Then he felt Tony move, wasn’t surprised when the back of Tony’s right hand stroked down the side of his neck as Tony said softly, “Want me to drive you home?”

“No.” He forced his eyes open, made his neck move down so he could meet Tony’s gaze. “But thanks for the offer.”

Smiling, Tony let his hand slip down from his neck to rest on the silk lapel of his jacket. “Safe Sex On The Beach has to have some advantages.”

“Well, safe sex is always a good idea--”

“If that’s an offer, I’m spoken for.”

“And since it’s basically just fruit juice, it’s probably the healthiest thing you ingest all year.”

“Now you’ve just went and spoiled it.”

“It was getting old.”

“You mean you’re getting grouchy.”

Deciding he couldn’t really argue with that, he let his head fall onto the back of the couch again so he could watch the refracted light from the chandelier dance across the ceiling. “Has Steve finished Clark’s commission yet?”

“You aren’t supposed to know about that.”

“You’re the one who told me about it.”

“I don’t--” Tony broke off as a blast of party noise escaped into the room with the opening door.

Turning his head, he expected to see Clark walk in, or maybe Roni.

His train of thought crashed to a halt when he saw Harvey stroll in looking as confident and handsome as always in his perfectly tailored tuxedo.

“Bruce, Stark,” Harvey greeted them while closing the door behind him and Tony tensed, moved to sit up on the couch while watching Harvey cross to the drinks cabinet.

“Did you get lost on your way out or hasn’t Roni realised you’ve crashed in yet?” Tony growled, but Harvey couldn’t care less about Tony’s ire.

“Don’t get your genius in a flap, Stark,” Harvey returned easily while pouring himself two fingers of whisky. “I’m not into sloppy seconds.”

“No, you’re--”

“I know Roni didn’t invite you, Harvey,” he broke in, nudging in front of Tony as Harvey turned to face them. “Why are you here?”

“Yeah, she’d sooner invite me to filet myself.” Harvey smiled and leaned back comfortably against the drinks cabinet. “But she did invite my date and I thought it would be rude not to stop by for a drink on our way to the theatre.”

He said nothing, just watched Harvey take a sip of whisky then consider them over the rim of his glass.

“So, are you fucking Stark again or just stringing him along again?” Harvey abruptly asked -- and Tony was across the room wrenching Harvey’s glass from his hand.

“You’ve had your drink, Dent!”

Moving away from the cabinet, Harvey leaned over Tony menacingly. “Is there anything of mine you don’t want to get your grubby little fingers all over?”

“The only thing I want to own of yours is your smarmy ass.”

“Yeah? Well good luck with that, Mighty Mouse.”

He knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere, knew Tony would try to goad Harvey into making the first move and that Harvey was never going to commit political suicide by starting a fight at one of Roni’s parties, but their performances were getting on his nerves. There were a few ways he could have ended the standoff, but he chose to walk up to Tony, take Harvey’s glass from him and drink down the whisky in three long swallows. Unfortunately, Clark decided to walk into the room before he’d finished.

Why hadn’t he gone home an hour ago?

“Uh, I think your date is looking for you, Mr Dent,” Clark said in his best innocuous reporter manner, not realising Harvey would see through him like plate glass.

“No she isn’t,” Harvey bluntly contradicted, already reading Tony’s peevishness towards Clark and his own resigned irritation. “But why don’t you come in and join the party? Kent, isn’t it? Star reporter of Bruce’s new rag.”

“I think you’ll find ‘The Daily Planet’ is a broadsheet,” Clark returned low, but still came into the room and closed the door behind him.

Perfect.

Giving up on the idea of exercising any control over the situation, he left them to it, walked away to the far end of the couch and sat down to watch the idiocy unfold.

All three of them watched his body language, knew what he was thinking, but that didn’t stop them.

“Let me guess,” Tony started it off by getting in Harvey’s face again, “you know your date isn’t looking for you because she dumped you for a human being?”

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience, Stark,” Harvey replied smoothly. “Do they tend to dump you before or after you give them the STDs?”

“You’re confusing me with the mirror again, Dent. I’m not the one who--”

“I think it’s time you left now, Mr Dent,” Clark interrupted while stepping slightly in front of Tony. “It would look better if you went before Ms Vreeland throws you out.”

As Harvey squared up to Clark, he knew this wasn’t going to end well. Then Harvey sniped, “Fucking the boss, Kent?” and everything went to hell.

Of course Harvey didn’t know anything, was just rattling Clark to see what fell out. Unfortunately, Clark wasn’t a good actor when he was angry.

“I know what you are!” Clark snarled in Harvey’s face. “Stay away from Bruce or I’ll--”

“You’ll what?” Harvey snapped. “Write a brusque article about me? All I was going to say was well done. Bruce doesn’t usually slum it with the help.”

“Well, let’s be fair, Harv,” Tony broke in before Clark lasered a hole through Harvey’s head, “after you, anyone is a step up.”

“Considering you were actually after me, Mighty Mouse, I’d have to say it was a step down.”

“Dent,” Clark growled, barely holding his temper, “if you don’t leave right now, I will be forced to eject you from the premises.”

Unimpressed, Harvey just smirked in Clark’s face. “Really? What are you going to do? Tag-team me with Mighty Mouse here?”

“Harvey,” he said before Clark or Tony could speak again and Harvey met his gaze, held it for a moment before shrugging almost imperceptibly and looking back to Clark and Tony.

“Well, you’ve been entertaining, boys,” Harvey said while shouldering past them, “but I’ve got a date to find and a performance of ‘Faust’ to catch, so I’ll have to leave it there. Maybe we can pick it up next time,” Harvey finished breezily as he walked out the room leaving the door standing open.

“You know he thinks Mephistopheles is the hero,” Tony commented dryly as Clark stepped over to the drinks cabinet, poured himself a shot of whisky and then drank it down. “I didn’t know you drank,” Tony said as Clark stiffly put down the empty glass.

“I don’t,” Clark hoarsed back.

“Oh.” Tony raised an eyebrow. “How was it?”

“Terrible.”

“Good.” Tony looked over at him and then back at Clark. “Right. So, it looks like I’m getting more Safe Sex from that waitress with the...yeah.” Tony nodded to himself then left the room, closing the door behind him.

Clark turned towards him but refused to look him in the eye, just walked across the floor and sat down on the opposite end of the couch then asked, “You all right?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“You were awful quiet back there.”

“If you were all quiet, nothing would have happened. Why did you have to get involved, Clark?”

“Me?” Clark met his gaze with a furious glare. “They were doing everything but urinate on your leg!”

“So you thought you’d join in and mark me as your territory?”

“I was trying to stop the situation from getting out of hand.”

“By telling Harvey we were together?”

“Why is this all my fault?”

“You should have stayed out of it!”

“And you should have asked Dent to leave as soon as he walked in!”

He said nothing, just turned away from Clark to glower across at the desk.

“So why didn’t you?” Clark persisted angrily. “If you knew Dent would have left with one damn word from you, why didn’t you get him to leave before I even arrived?”

“I was working on it.”

“By acting like a contrary floozie?”

He blinked. Had Clark just... Turning his head, he met Clark’s uncomfortable gaze. “Did you just liken me to a sex worker?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Well what do you expect?” Clark suddenly accused instead. “You were putting on a show for them!”

“I was getting their attention.”

“You certainly managed that,” Clark growled. “What was next? A striptease?”

“Actually, I was just going to skip to sex with Harvey on the desk.”

“You think this is funny?”

“I think it’s idiotic. You acted like a jealous child. The only thing you achieved was letting Harvey know we were together and I’m beginning to suspect that was your goal all along.”

Clark’s expression immediately shifted from righteous fury to a moody scowl. “I didn’t plan it. It just came out. You know I don’t want him near you and I couldn’t help but say it when he was standing right in front of me. You should be grateful I didn’t punch a hole through his head.”

“No, you should be grateful.”

“What? I’m getting the blame for him being utterly vile? You heard what he said, Bruce. How could you just sit there and let him put us down like that?”

“You brought it on yourselves.”

“By walking into the room?”

“By opening your mouths. He only used the ammunition you gave him.”

“That sounds like you were admiring him! Or maybe you just liked watching us fight over you?”

He raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Fighting over me? It was a pissing contest, Clark. You were all behaving like idiots.”

“It’s idiotic of me to want to stop him hurting you?”

“No,” he relented, reaching out with his left hand to capture Clark’s right and bring the knuckles up to his mouth for an apologetic kiss. “But I won’t let him hurt me,” he promised, kissing Clark’s hand again before letting it go. But Clark didn’t want to break their connection, caught his hand on the middle couch seat and held it there, stroking his fingers with his thumb.

“I overheard you saying Tony told you about the commission,” Clark said softly. “Do you know what I asked Steve to paint?”

“I could hazard a guess.”

“So you haven’t seen it yet?”

“No.”

“Good.”

 

 

End


End file.
